Drunk Dialing
by Inusagi
Summary: Owen drags Jack out to the pub, but he just wants Ianto. Happy Birthday, Hatorl! Oneshot. Complete


Disclaimer: Torchwood does not belong to me. I am but a lowly fanfiction writer.

A/N: This isn't part of the July Challenge! It was written for **Hatorl** as a birthday gift! She's been lovely. She requested Drunk!Jack fluff, so here goes nothing! There is a bit of angst, because Jack's never shown in the series or media as being drunk just to be drunk. The Michael he's referencing is from Trace Memory, the TW book. I'm pretty sure I butchered the quote.

*x*x*

Owen kept buying me drinks. I knew he meant well, really I did, but it was starting to make me maudlin and lonely. Girls kept chatting him up and I could hear him make excuses about his mate needing somebody to cheer him up after a nasty domestic.

He'd insisted that a few drinks down out the pub would help me get over whatever "shitty thing the tea boy said this time."

It wasn't that easy. It wasn't just a row. Ianto left me. He _broke up_ with me, like we were heartsick teenagers. He'd gotten all his kit out of my bunker and replaced it with a box of random junk I'd left at his flat. My socks, three different belts, cufflinks. All of it. And without a single word.

Gwen and Toshiko, predictably, had ganged up on me when they saw him stashing his suits in the Tourism Centre. Big, bad Captain Jack, who couldn't keep it in his trousers, hurting poor, innocent Ianto again.

They were right, though. That was the worst part. I had hurt Ianto. I'd gone to Michael, but I didn't do it to cause Ianto pain.

It sounded like I'd been given permission, really. _I don't own you_. He'd said. _I can't stop you_.

But then I'd done the wrong thing. I should have told Ianto I'd rather be with him. Or invited him along for some platonic activities, like poker. Or something.

Instead, I've wound up drinking cheap, watered down booze in the dingy pub Owen preferred. This would be Owen's sort, really. It was practically a meat market. It'd take half a second to find some cute young thing to take me home. It's what my medic seemed to have in mind, a quick, drunken shag to get Ianto out from under my skin.

The others…they all thought that it was a pathetic passing phase. I was clearly taking advantage of Ianto's innocence and age and just stringing him along, waiting for the next thing to turn my head before I cast him aside.

They didn't understand. Not a single one of them, not even goddamn Gwen, who was supposed to be the one who really _understood _people. Ianto was young, yes, but hardly the picture of innocence. The devious, sexy things that boy's mind could come up with boggled my mind constantly. And I was hardly taking advantage of him. _I loved him_. I still do.

I finished my scotch in a long gulp and took advantage of Owen's pretty blond distraction. Outside, the air was cool and damp. It seemed to sober me up a little and I dialed Ianto's mobile before I lost my nerve.

I knew he'd picked up even though he didn't say a word, so I started. "I know you're mad, Ianto. I shouldn't have done it. I shoulda stayed home. Don't hate me, Ianto. Don't be mad. Don't leave me."

For a moment, the only sound he made was a put-upon sigh, but then he asked, "How drunk are you, Jack?"

I must have been slurring my words more than I'd thought. "Just a little. Owen dragged me out."

"Where is Owen now?"

"Chattin' up some blond. She looks kinda like Gwen, really, but taller. Or shorter. I can't remember, but the height is definitely wrong."

"Stay where you are, Jack. I'll call you right back."

Owen found me a few minutes later, right as Ianto's dark Audi pulled up. "Oi! What'd you have the tea boy call me for?"

My Ianto, my sweet, gorgeous Ianto, rolled down his passenger window. He's hair was mussed and he was wearing his pyjamas. "Jack. Get in the bloody car."

"Hey, wait a minute! He was gonna pull, don't go crampin' his style by bein' jealous, Jonesey!"

"Owen, one of these days, I will shoot you. And I will enjoy it more than I can say. I was asleep. I am exhausted. Do you need a lift to your flat, too, or do you have your eye on some clap-riddled slag?"

The doctor swept back into the pub muttering about Ianto being a bastard.

Ianto was swearing a blue streak, too, which was unusual. He was normally so composed. "Jack. It's fucking cold and I want to go home. If I have to get out of this car in my fucking jimjams to buckle you in, you're sleeping on the goddamn sofa. Don't think I'm kidding."

I didn't need telling again, but in the end, Ianto _did_ have to buckle my safety belt. I hoped that it was the "getting out of the car in embarrassingly colorful pyjamas" bit that would have sent me to the most uncomfortable couch I'd ever seen and not the "snapping the buckle because this idiot's too drunk to get it.

I decided to try again. "I'm so sorry, Ianto. I'll never do it again. I promise."

He gave me a brief look that told me he wasn't impressed. "And what did you do now?"

"With…with Michael. It was a mistake. I…I didn't think."

Ianto pulled into his building's car park before looking at me like I'd lost my mind. "Are you fucking kidding me? You woke me up from the first time I'd been able to sleep in _three days _because you thought I was pissed at you for shagging Michael Bellini? _That's_ what this is about?"

"You—you took your stuff out of my bunker!" I was so confused and more than a little nauseous. I had entirely too much to drink.

"My suits needed to go to the cleaners. I take clothing in and out of your bolt hole constantly."

"But…but you put all my stuff from your flat there!"

He cuffed me around the ear. It wasn't too hard, but I didn't see it coming. "All your stuff? Really, Jack? Your toothbrush, your shampoo, and the nine thousand hair products you have on my sink? They were in that box?"

"Well, no…"

"No, they were not. It was your bloody socks, you idiot. The same dirty socks I've told you a million times _do not_ belong scattered around my bedroom. I have no idea how you keep losing the belts, either, but they equally do not belong on my floor."

Relief flooded through me. "So…you're not angry with me? You're not leaving me?"

"No, Jack. I'm not leaving you. But I'm not happy about the socks and I'm not happy about being dragged out of bed. I just want to sleep, damn it. Why is that so hard?" He knocked his head against the steering wheel repeatedly, frustrated. He didn't resist when I pulled him to me for an awkward-angled cuddle.

"I'll pick up my socks from now on. I promise! And I won't…_I won't_…not with anybody but you…"

I kissed him, slowly and languidly. I ran my fingers though his already-tousled hair and rubbed my palm against the stubble on his jaw. When I pulled away, he smiled. All the irritation and frustration seemed to have leached out of him.

He was happy again. I was happy again. We were happy _together_. I thought that this was the most perfect moment I'd had in decades.

And then I threw up all over the floorboard of his car.

"You're paying to have that cleaned up, Jack."


End file.
